We All Talk On Things We Don't Know About
by Hilary Chuff
Summary: Lily didn't used to believe witches were real. Why should werewolves come as a shock?


They're not speaking. They haven't spoken in months, really, not since Sev camped outside the Common Room door and refused to leave until she came out and talked to him. And because she was stupid, she'd gone, given in, but after she'd finally left, disappeared back through the portrait hole, she'd only just made it back to her bed before she'd all but dissolved into a puddle. And so she'd known better the next time he tried it, when he waited outside her parents' house for two hours while she snuck out the back and through the neighbors' yards to head into town. So they haven't spoken. But it's been close a couple of times, and it's harder at Hogwarts when there are so many classes they share and hallways to navigate.

So it's not exactly a surprise when he trails her after Potions. She tries losing him in the crowd at first, and then slipping down an empty corridor further into the dungeons where she can duck behind a statue of armor or something, and then through a passageway that Marlene showed her that leads just one floor up, but he knows the dungeons better than she does and he catches her before she's even halfway finished climbing through the hidey hole.

"Lily, stop!" he says, breathless from weaving through the other students to chase after her, but she doesn't listen. She plants one foot firmly into the little tunnel and bends over to duck her head through. "I know about Lupin!" he shouts, desperate, sharp, and she pauses to look up at him through the opening in the wall.

She remembers the first time he'd told her about his theory, how he'd confessed it under his breath in a horrified whisper back in second year. And she'd laughed because werewolves, Sev, really, only stopping once he'd insisted they were real as if she were stupid not to know. As if it were a given that any myth, any legend she'd ever heard about was true. Even then, she'd just rolled her eyes because, well, fine, witches were real and werewolves were real and so what?

The next year, once they started learning about werewolves, he kept pushing the subject, elbowing her during Defense classes when they'd read select passages, but she'd only elbow him back twice as hard, hissing at him to shut up (and she doesn't even remember who it was that year, whether it was McKinney or Braithewaite or Sterling) while the professor was lecturing. He was right that the signs all lined up, but Merlin, what did it matter anyway?

Remus Lupin was one of the nicest boys she'd met at school, his choice of company aside, and he made her choke on her laughs when they were studying together in the library. He'd gotten her kicked out more than once, whether it was for being too loud or for sharing the chocolate bar he'd smuggled in, and she was supposed to, what, be afraid of him?

Come fourth year he was really starting to push it, glaring at her across the classroom when she occasionally partnered with Remus for Potions or whatever else. He'd insisted again, pulling her aside after he'd caught them teasing each other over lunch in the Great Hall, but she'd learned by then that he said werewolf the same way a lot of people said Mudblood and she'd told him to fuck off before he'd really even started in. What are you, jealous? she'd challenged, and he'd turned red but spouted off something about the danger she was putting herself in, how it was obvious that the two of them were—were… She'd walked off before he'd finished.

Fifth year he'd come to her with newspaper clippings, six in total and one full Prophet from the past few months about sightings and attacks and little Muggle boys being ripped to shreds in their homes. "And you think this is Remus?" she'd scoffed, and if the picture of a house, front door clawed to splinters hadn't turned her stomach, she might've even laughed. "Maybe not him, but his kind," he'd insisted again, but she'd pulled the paper out of his hands and flipped to another page, shoving it back at him. "And was this his kind, too," she spits, jabbing at the picture of the Dark Mark, "or was it yours? You know what they're saying about Mulciber and all them. Don't think they're not saying it about you, too." He'd turned a startling shade of crimson when she'd hissed, "Maybe it's you I should be frightened of," but at least he'd finally dropped it, once and for all.

Until now, at least, and she raises a single eyebrow at him.

"I saw him," he sneers, "the real him."

She stares, removes her foot and arm from the inside of the tunnel, and takes a step closer.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yes."

"And?"

"And—" he sputters, as if he hadn't expected to have to say anything more, as if he'd expected her to give in or apologize for fighting him on this all these years now that he'd finally confirmed it for himself. "And—" he starts again, but she cuts him off before he's got a chance to come up with whatever words would come next.

"And you've trapped me here to finally prove that you're the more dangerous one after all?"

"What?" he gapes, mouth opening and closing for a second, and he takes an automatic step back before he's charging forward another two steps.

"What, you haven't got me alone in the dungeons with your wand in your hand?" He almost drops it at that, looking horrified down at where he's clutching it in his fist.

"Lily, I wouldn't—"

"But isn't that what you all do?" she laughs. "Isn't that what your pal Wilkes did last month to Annabeth Dearling? Isn't that what Mulciber did to Mary last year? Isn't that what Rosier did to me last week?"

He pales, but she doesn't wait for an answer, instead shoving past him down the corridor, her shoulder knocking hard against his, and she stubbornly wipes knuckles under her eyes until the burning sensation is gone. Her cheeks stay dry.

Potter and Black have double Ancient Runes, so when she finally gets to the Great Hall Remus is sitting alone. She falls into the seat beside him, swinging her rucksack into her lap and bumping her shoulder against his as she grabs sandwiches and wraps them up in napkins from the table. "C'mon," she says, and plucks the tart he's holding out of his grasp to replace it with her hand, hauling him to his feet. "We're eating outside today."


End file.
